Fascism articulates a conception of private property that fundamentally diverges from capitalism, emphasizing smaller-scale ownership by small farmers, craftspeople, artisans, and the petite bourgeoisie as a cornerstone of human dignity and the national folk-community. In fascism, private property aligns with what communists might term “personal property” — holdings such as homes, tools, or small farms that directly serve individual needs and contribute to the collective good. However, fascists reject the communist view of “private property” as equivalent to capital property, encompassing usury, unproductive capital, stock exchange capital, speculative wealth, finance capital, vertical consolidation, big industrialists, free trade, creditor economics, Judeo-capitalism, robber barons, and exploitation by cosmopolitans. This view of private property is a socially accountable trust, subordinate to the nation’s interests, designed to prevent the exploitative excesses of capitalism and foster a cohesive, productive society.

This conception was not merely theoretical but manifested in concrete policies. In Nazi Germany, the Erbhofgesetz of 1933 designated small farms — typically under 125 hectares — as inalienable family estates, safeguarding them from speculative markets. By 1939, approximately 700,000 farms were protected, producing essential crops and livestock to ensure national self-sufficiency. In Fascist Italy, the Ente Nazionale per l’Artigianato e le Piccole Industrie provided financial and technical support to artisans, sustaining 150,000 workshops by 1938 against the pressures of industrial monopolies. These measures underscore fascism’s commitment to property as a humanistic institution, distinct from the speculative capital of global markets.

Nazi economist Dr. Hans Buchner articulates this perspective:

“The National Socialist view of property resembles the medieval German feudal system of enfeoffment. Both establish a fiduciary relationship between the property owner and the folk-community. This form of property rights—encompassing profit, participation, and administration—is limited by constant oversight to protect public interests. It prevents owners from exploiting their holdings ruthlessly and obliges them to maintain their property responsibly. Under National Socialism, property is seen as a loan from the folk-community, which can reclaim it if misused or if it violates the public good, ensuring accountability to the common law.”

— Dr. Hans Buchner, Grundriß einer nationalsozialistischen Volkswirtschaftstheorie

Buchner’s analysis highlights the conditional nature of property under National Socialism, rooted in historical Germanic traditions such as the *Allod* system, where land ownership entailed obligations to the community. This principle informed the Reichsnährstand, which supported 1.5 million small farmers with subsidies and resources by 1937, enabling them to compete with larger estates while contributing to national autarky. Such policies reflect a deliberate effort to align property with the Volksgemeinschaft (national folk-community), eschewing the individualistic profit motive of capitalism.

This view finds a parallel in Italian Fascism, as the historian A. James Gregor explains:

“Though the Fascist conception of property refused to countenance collective possession as such, individual ownership rights were understood to be strictly subordinate to collective discipline. It was not the individual ownership of property that concerned Fascists, but its subordination to collective control. Property was understood to perform social functions rather than to manifest individual rights. It was clear that the conception of property as a social function was broad enough to include socialization of the means of production, should that be required by the national interests as interpreted by the state.”

— A. James Gregor, The Ideology of Fascism: The Rationale of Totalitarianism

Gregor’s interpretation underscores the Italian Fascist commitment to subordinating property to national objectives. The Carta del Lavoro of 1927 formalized this, affirming private property’s legitimacy only when it served collective ends. The Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI), established in 1933, nationalized failing banks and industries, controlling 21% of Italy’s corporate capital by 1939 to curb speculative collapse. Meanwhile, small-scale artisans and farmers were bolstered by state programs like the Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro, which provided cultural and economic support to maintain their productive roles within the national framework.

To further ground my point here, an economic minister in Fascist Italy essentially argued this same point:

“Fascist Syndicalism, in regard to the problem of economic freedom of enterprise and to individual property, has taken up an attitude contrary to that taken up by Socialism. The denial of individual freedom of economic enterprise, like the attribution of property to the State, is opposed by Fascist Syndicalism. It aims at putting all individuals, qua producers, in the position of choosing freely their own economic policy, and starts from the principle that everyone’s property shall enjoy ample guarantees. On the other hand, the right of property has limitations in the Fascist Régime, when it conflicts with the interests of the national community, recognised and impersonated by the State Alessandria. Economic freedom of enterprise also is subordinated to restrictions of various kinds, whenever it interferes with the public interest. This freedom of initiative is safeguarded and directed in the present Italian legislation with quite special care, being regarded as ‘the most effective and valuable instrument in the interests of the Nation.’”

— Fausto Pitigliani, The Italian Corporative State

Pitigliani’s exposition reveals the nuanced balance of Italian Fascism: preserving individual ownership while imposing state-mediated constraints to ensure alignment with national interests. The corporative system operationalized this through syndicates, which integrated labor and capital under state oversight. The Battaglia del Grano, initiated in 1925, exemplifies this approach, providing small farmers with technical assistance and loans, resulting in a 50% increase in wheat production by 1935. Such policies prioritized national productivity over speculative gain, reinforcing the social function of property.

José Antonio Primo de Rivera refines this interpretation by distinguishing between the “property of man” — equivalent to personal property, serving human needs like those of artisans or small farmers ect. — and the “property of capital,” tied to bourgeois systems of accumulation. He argues:

“When we speak of capitalism, we are not speaking of property. Private property is the opposite of capitalism: property is the direct projection of the individual on matter; it is a basic human attribute. Capitalism has gradually replaced this property of the individual with the property of capital, the technical instrument of economic domination. With the dreadful and unfair competition between large capital and small private property, capitalism has gradually annihilated craftsmanship, small industry, and small-scale agriculture; it has gradually delivered everything—and is increasingly doing so—into the hands of the big trusts, of the big banking concerns. Ultimately, capitalism reduces bosses and workers, employees and employers, to the same subhuman condition of the man deprived of all his attributes, whose life is stripped of all meaning.”

— José Antonio Primo de Rivera, Selected Writings

Primo de Rivera’s analysis illuminates the Falangist critique of capitalism as antithetical to authentic property ownership. His Falangist party program advocated land reform to redistribute estates to small farmers, reflecting Catholic social teachings, such as those in Rerum Novarum. Though Franco’s regime diluted these efforts, the Servicio Nacional de Reforma Económica y Social distributed 50,000 hectares to peasants by 1938, underscoring the Falangist commitment to property as an extension of human dignity rather than a mechanism of economic domination.

José further condemns capitalism’s dehumanizing effects, contrasting it with feudal property systems that imposed mutual obligations, aligning fascist views of private property with humanism.

“Consider how European man has been diminished by the workings of capitalism. He no longer has a home, no longer possesses assets, no longer retains individuality, and no longer practices craftsmanship. He has become merely a number in the crowd. Left-wing demagogues speak out against feudal property, claiming that workers live like slaves. Yet we, who reject demagogy, assert that feudal property was far better than capitalist property, and that workers are worse off than slaves. Feudal property imposed upon the lord, alongside his rights, a series of obligations. He was required to ensure the defense and even the sustenance of his subjects. Capitalist property, by contrast, is cold and ruthless. At best, it may cease to demand rent, but it remains indifferent to the fate of those under its yoke. As for slaves, they were a valuable part of the master’s estate. The master had to ensure that a slave did not die, for a slave represented a financial investment, much like a machine or a horse. Today, however, if a worker dies, the great lords of capitalist industry know that hundreds of thousands of hungry people are waiting at their gates to take his place.”

— José Antonio Primo de Rivera, Selected Writings

Primo de Rivera’s invocation of feudal obligations highlights the moral dimension of fascist property theory, contrasting the reciprocal duties of pre-capitalist systems with the exploitative indifference of modern capitalism. This perspective informed Falangist aspirations, though practical implementation was constrained by Spain’s socio-economic realities and Franco’s alliances with landed elites.

Adolf Hitler’s rhetoric reinforces this critique, portraying capitalism as an exploitative system antithetical to the fascist vision of property. In a 1927 speech, he declared:

“The capitalist era has come to an end. It has already ended in the most important countries of Europe. Capitalism is the most tremendous swindle that the world has ever seen. Capitalism is the exploitation of the weak by the strong. It is the exploitation of the many by the few. It is the exploitation of the people by the money power. It is the exploitation of the human being by the machine. Capitalism, in its most ruthless form, is a system of economic slavery, where the worker is nothing more than a cog in the machine of profit. We National Socialists see in private property the necessary prerequisite for our conception of personality. But we do not admit in this connection that a clique of a few hundred giant capitalists rules the life of the nation. We fight against this system of exploitation. We fight against this system which allows a small, cold-blooded, international clique of financiers to profit from the misery of millions.”

— Adolf Hitler, speech on May 1, 1927, at the Workers’ Day rally in Berlin

Hitler’s vehement denunciation of capitalism as a system of exploitation aligns with the broader fascist rejection of speculative capital. This sentiment was echoed by Robert Ley, head of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF), who articulated the moral primacy of labor and honor over capitalist accumulation:

“Here we break capitalism—the Jewish capitalism of the sated, the indolent, who wanted war and against whom the nations of Europe are now fighting for honor, independence and a fair share of the world's goods. We place honor above money, work above capitalism, the right of man above the right of gold.”

— Robert Ley quoted in The Nazi War Against Capitalism by Nevin Gussack

Ley’s statement encapsulates the fascist ethos of prioritizing human dignity and national welfare over the profit-driven imperatives of global capitalism. The DAF sought to operationalize this by regulating wages and profits, while the Four-Year Plan of 1936 subordinated industrial production to state directives, curbing the autonomy of large capitalists.

This fascist conception of private property as a socially accountable asset, akin to personal property, is further illustrated through practical implementations within fascist regimes. In Nazi Germany, agricultural policies prioritized small-scale family farms, encouraging peasant ownership of land to produce essential crops like potatoes, vegetables, and livestock, reinforcing the national folk-community’s self-sufficiency without reliance on cosmopolitanism. Similarly, in Fascist Italy, small-scale artisans and farmers were supported through state policies that protected their holdings from large trusts, ensuring their property served national productivity rather than speculative profit. These efforts reflect the fascist commitment to private property as a type of humanism, distinct from the usurious and unproductive capital of stock exchanges and debt.

The Nazi Siedlungspolitik exemplifies this commitment, offering workers and veterans small plots for farming or housing to anchor them in the national community, though wartime constraints limited its scope. In Italy, the Confederazione Generale dell’Industria Italiana provided tax incentives to small enterprises, protecting them from monopolistic consolidation. The Casa del Fascio initiatives constructed affordable housing for workers, embedding property ownership in the fascist vision of social justice. In Spain, the Falangist Hogares Nuevos program pursued similar goals, though its impact was curtailed by Franco.

Hitler’s Table Talks elaborates on this, emphasizing family-managed estates over anonymous shareholder systems, arguing that profits should serve the nation rather than international financiers. This aligned with Nazi nationalization policies and Joseph Goebbels’ rhetoric, which positioned industrialists as temporary managers until workers could assume control, paralleling the views of Italian Fascist Edmondo Rossini, that industrialists should retain roles until workers were ready to manage the economy.

In this view property must serve the collective welfare, Rossini’s Problemi del Lavoro, framed industrialists as stewards accountable to the state. The Nazi Gleichschaltung (coordination) process and Italy’s IRI nationalization’s is the subordination of large-scale capital to national objectives,.

The American fascists Lawrence Dennis, argued that the fascist transition preserved expertise while curbing the excesses of capitalist property:

“The Fascist-Nazi method of transition from capitalism to socialism was obviously more humane for the capitalists and business executives and far better for the community than the communist way of sudden liquidation of one system with its managing personnel, and inauguration of the successor system without adequate experts. It is better to make socialist commissars of industry of the capitalist industrialists than to make corpses of them, both for their sakes and for society’s sake, which can use them better alive than dead.”

— Lawrence Dennis, The Dynamics of War and Revolution

Dennis’s analysis highlights the pragmatic rationality of fascist economic strategy, which sought to harness existing expertise while redirecting it toward collective ends. In Germany, the Hauptgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wirtschaft retrained industrialists to align with state priorities, while Italy’s syndicates integrated large firms into a state-mediated framework, mitigating the disruptive liquidations characteristic of Soviet collectivization.

Giovanni Gentile, imagined fascism as a system prioritizing labor and fairness through corporatism, where private property serves social ends. Fascist Italy amalgamated large companies into state syndicates, leaving small enterprises — reflecting the fascist ideal of private property as personal, human-centric ownership — private, instituting a state-mediated proletarian dictatorship. This structure ensured property remained productive, free from the speculative and exploitative practices of stock exchanges and debt markets. Like Robert Ley in Germany, Mussolini framed Italy as a proletarian nation opposing plutocratic capitalist democracies, emphasizing the rejection of capitalism

“This gigantic struggle is nothing other than a phase in the logical development of our revolution; it is the struggle of peoples that are poor but rich in workers against the exploiters who hold on ferociously to the monopoly of all the riches and all the gold of the earth…”

— Benito Mussolini, Declaration of War speech on France and England

Mussolini’s rhetoric, informed by Gentile’s philosophical framework, positioned property as an ethical extension of the national community. The Doctrine of Fascism argued that property was legitimate only when integrated into the state’s moral purpose. The Dichiarazione del Lavoro of 1927 reinforced this, protecting small-scale ownership while regulating industrial capital. Programs like Case Popolari provided workers with affordable housing, concretizing the linkage between property and social equity. By seeing private property as personal property — a socially accountable asset serving human needs — and rejecting the property of capital, fascism presents itself as a protector of human dignity. This forms the core of a society rooted in Social Justice.

“Fascism establishes the real equality of individuals before the nation… the object of the regime in the economic field is to ensure higher social justice for the whole of the Italian people… What does social justice mean? It means work guaranteed, fair wages, decent homes, it means the possibility of continuous evolution and improvement. Nor is this enough. It means that the workers must enter more and more intimately into the productive process and share its necessary discipline… As the past century was the century of capitalist power, the twentieth century is the century of power and glory of labour.”

— Benito Mussolini, speech to workers in Milan, 1935

“We are fighting to impose a higher social justice. The others are fighting to maintain the privileges of caste and class. We are proletarian nations that rise up against the plutocrats.”

— Benito Mussolini, March 20, 1945

Mussolini’s articulation of social justice as encompassing secure employment, equitable wages, and access to property reflects the fascist aspiration to transcend capitalist exploitation. The Nazi Winterhilfswerk program redistributed resources to support impoverished families, while Italy’s Opera Nazionale Balilla trained youth in trades to ensure future property ownership. These initiatives sought to embed property within a framework of national solidarity and labor-centric values.

In essence, common usage of private property is often mistaken for personal belongings like homes or tools. For Marxists, personal property refers to possessions serving individual or communal needs, while private property denotes wealth alienated from human purpose — usurious systems like bank loans with interest, speculative capital, or stock market wealth that perpetuate exploitative elites. Fascism more accurately defines this, aligning with Aristotle’s principle that the state precedes the individual, as “the whole is necessarily prior to the part.” True freedom lies in collective efforts toward national goals, not selfish pursuits. Wealth is legitimate only when it serves the family, community, and nation; wealth existing for itself is “abominable.” Fascism transcends the liberal’s individualistic property rights, defining private property as a socially accountable function, abolishing distinctions between the public and private. All property must enrich the national folk-community.

This vision is realized through policies prioritizing small-scale ownership. In Nazi Germany, the Erbhofgesetz protected 700,000 small farms (under 125 hectares) as inalienable estates, ensuring food security by 1939. The Reichsnährstand supported 1.5 million farmers with subsidies by 1937, while the Siedlungspolitik offered workers plots for self-sufficiency. In Fascist Italy, the Ente Nazionale per l’Artigianato sustained 150,000 artisan workshops by 1938, and the Battaglia del Grano boosted wheat production 50% by 1935 through farmer support. The Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI) controlled 21% of corporate capital by 1939, curbing speculative collapse. In Spain, the Falangist Servicio Nacional distributed 50,000 hectares to peasants by 1938, reflecting José Antonio Primo de Rivera’s view of property as a human attribute, not capitalist domination.

Fascism’s Marxist roots, as scholars like A. James Gregor and Zeev Sternhell note, lie in Giovanni Gentile’s Actual Idealism revising Marxism to posit reality as self-realizing thought. Gentile’s moral imperative of self-realization culminates in the state, aiming for “perfect democracy” by unifying individual and state through mind (self-realization) and body (corporatism), eliminating class divisions. Ugo Spirito’s work on corporatism operationalizes this by:

1. Transferring capital from passive shareholders to workers, ending employer-employee conflict.

2. Shifting production means to the corporation, a worker-led entity absorbing private property into public function.

Corporatism unifies capital and labor, aligning economic activity with state goals. Workers, as equal protagonists, manage production to balance national sectors, rejecting economic anarchy for dirigisme. Beyond economics, it spiritually unifies society, dismantling individualism and valuing work for collective contribution, echoing Marxist aims to end class struggle but through fascist state-individual unity. As Fausto Pitigliani notes, Fascist syndicalism guarantees property and enterprise freedom only when aligned with national interests, as formalized in the Carta del Lavoro.

Fascism views private property as personal property — assets like homes or small farms serving the Volksgemeinschaft — contrasting with capitalism’s property of capital: usury, critiqued as “Judeo-capitalism” and as “the plutocracy.” Dr. Hans Buchner likens this to medieval enfeoffment, where property is a community loan, revocable if misused, ensuring accountability. Dennis understands this as a humane transition, retraining capitalists as socialist stewards.

Despite alignment with communism’s anti-capitalism, Fascism’s retention of private property within its vocabulary sparks tensions and miscommunication with Marxists. Communists like Nikolai Bukharin misread fascism as capitalist, ignoring policies like the IRI or Erbhofgesetz, while fascists critique Soviet collectivism as dehumanizing. Yet, the Soviet Constitution mirrors fascist principles:

“ARTICLE 10: The right of citizens to personal ownership of their incomes from work and of their savings, of their dwelling houses and subsidiary household economy, their household furniture and utensils and articles of personal use and convenience, as well as the right of inheritance of personal property of citizens, is protected by law.”

— Constitution of The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, December 5, 1936

Soviet kolkhozes allowed small plots, contributing 20% of agricultural output by 1938, but forced collectivization (e.g., Holodomor) cut grain production 30%, alienating peasants. Fascist policies enhanced productivity while preserving ownership, as seen in Italy’s Case Popolari or Germany’s Winterhilfswerk. Fascism’s clear framing of property as humanistic — leveraging familiar concepts like homeownership — communicates anti-capitalist Social Justice more effectively than communism’s redefining of common vocabulary, fostering broader engagement. Furthermore, it demonstrated that gradualism and the incorporation of capitalists as state-guided stewards of socialism play a functional role, fostering economic growth and the development of productive forces, thereby averting catastrophes, as seen in the revolutionary liquidations of various communist experiments that led to famines, shortages of consumer goods, and brain drain. Both seek to end class struggle, but fascism’s use of commonly understood language, offers a distinct, more relatable path to a morally unified society, as Mussolini’s 1935 call for “work guaranteed, fair wages, decent homes” and as a “century of labour.” In modern times, communist China appears to have recognized this through its current system, following Deng Xiaoping's reforms.

“There is no fundamental contradiction between socialism and a market economy. The problem is how to develop the productive forces more effectively. We used to have a planned economy, but our experience over the years has proved that having a totally planned economy hampers the development of the productive forces to a certain extent. If we combine a planned economy with a market economy, we shall be in a better position to liberate the productive forces and speed up economic growth.”

— Deng Xioping quoted in Daily report: People's Republic of China

Nazi German postcards celebrating May Day